Freetrapper

Beaver trappers were the cowboys of early America. Renegade mountaineers of the Jacksonian era who cut trails through the wild in search of beaver pelts–prized by hatters, doctors, and perfumers. Dark cedar, snake root, synthetic beaver castor, and wild bergamot.

Liner Notes & Ingredients

Liner Notes

Freetrapper is our most modern masculine scent, but its origins are early America. Many of the highways we drive down today, were originally trails used for overland passage via stagecoach and horses. Before that, trails were cut the old fashioned way with machetes. Those usually followed natural paths pounded out by large game animals in search of food.

American trails going west were cut for a few important reasons. Lewis & Clark led the first expedition to survey the land acquired in the Louisiana Purchase. The government wanted to find a way across the huge expanse of the western territories, hopefully by water. They hoped to establish American presence in a native land, and to set up trade routes for a much needed commodity: beavers. Beavers were happening rodents in the 18th & 19th centuries. They had been depleted in Europe where their fur and testicles were used for hats, cosmetics, and tanning. America was full of beavers.

Much has been written about castoreum (oil extracted from the beaver’s testicle-like castor sac). Obviously it is a polarizing product. We do not use the real oil anymore, though some companies do. The real oil smells like a zoo. It is fecal, repulsive-attractive, dark and leathery. Beavers use it combined with their urine, to mark their territory. It is an important animalic note in perfume that offers mucho sex appeal.

Freetrapper has a delicate leathery base helped with synthetic castoreum. It starts with fresh citrus –bitter orange and bergamot, falls back upon clean blond woods and the spice of cistus labdaunum, until it finally concludes with warm amber and sandalwood.